356 THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



CHAPTER XVII 



Frank Raby becomes a regular Meltonian ; loses his father, and 

 finally settles down as a master of foxhounds, the point of 

 honour in the Life of a Sportsman. 



IT is scarcely necessary to observe, that the first week 

 in the succeeding November found our hero at 

 Melton Mowbray, occupying the house which he had 

 already tenanted for upwards of two years, and with his 

 stud increased to fourteen hunters and two cover hacks. 

 And his indoors establishment was this : at the head of 

 it was his trusty butler, who had lived nearly all his 

 life with his late uncle, and consequently, having known 

 him in his childhood, was attached to his person and 

 interests beyond mercenary views, and who kept all his 

 accounts ; his own personal servant, or valet, skilled in 

 the art of clothes-cleaning, and especially in the depart- 

 ment of the boots, then only in its infancy ; a French 

 cook, with the highest attestations of his abilities from 

 Lord Edmonston, with whom he had lived, and who had 

 " parted with him for no fault," as the horse-chaunter 

 says in his puff of the patched-up screw ; an English 

 kitchen-maid of no slender qualifications, without which 

 no man's cuisine is complete ; his housekeeper, having 

 had her education in the Amstead still-room, under the 

 tuition of Mrs. Jones ; a footman and a housemaid 

 bringing up the rear. Here it will be perceived is no 

 wanton prodigality, nor was any such indulged in by 

 our young sportsman. His practice was to give dinners 

 twice a week, to parties of eight, and on the evenings on 

 which he had no engagement, one friend at least would 

 be his guest, to talk over the events of the day. And at 

 no place, except Melton, is there such a never-failing 

 succession of events to be discussed on these occasions, 

 by reason of there being three packs of hounds within 

 reach, and the certainty that out of a party of eight, one 

 attendant, at least, upon each pack, would be found. 

 Having stated all this, there is little room for doubting 

 that although, perhaps, the knowledge of the savoir virre 

 in our young sportsman, was not quite so complete as in 

 some of the bon vivants of the day, who had more ex- 



